Beer: Reviews & Ratings

From tasting notes. A: Brilliant chestnut under a 2” persistent lightly tan tinted white foam collar that clings to the side of the glass. S: this has a very rich Frangelico or hazelnut liquor nose with some coffee and chocolate. T: Nutella in a glass. F: Creamy medium full body, medium low carbonation. O: The concept sounds cloying but it surpisingly works quite well. (378 characters)

T - Similar to the nose but with alcohol presence and light warming on the way down. The hazelnut is toned down (the hefty nose was screaming the same on the palate...not so much). Light hazelnut, mocha/coffee, semi-creamy, nutty, and sweet dark chocolate.

M - Thin medium body to medium body and thin on the finish, dry finish, and coats the mouth with nutty, dark chocolate.

a - poured a one finger thick creamy tan head into a snifter. the body was dark brown like molasses. this should be good...s - big hazelnut aromas hit you immediately. there is a hint of chocolate and coffee as well.t - nutty and chocolatey with a toasty finish.m - creamy and coating.o - this one did not disappoint at all. just so sweet and delicious. incredibly drinkable and pleasant. i'm glad i have one more left. (429 characters)

T/M/O: Rich, sweet, and Frangelico-y. Hazelnut liquer. Strong and chocolatey. The coffee is still present. This is incredible. It may be slightly faded, but still hugely flavorful. The finish is dry and nutty and lingering and reminiscent of almonds and coffee grounds. Hint of watery softness belied by the surprising 9% ABV. Drinkable and pleasant. Highly recommended. I'm really happy to have had an opportunity to sample this. (697 characters)

I am trying a two year old bottle at Windber Hotel outside of J'town PA. The beer poured a a clear rich brown with thin to no head that is not lacing much. The scent is slightly sour and bready. Not getting much hazelnut, etc. The taste is smooth and the coffee and hazelnut come alive in the taste it is very nice! The mouthfeel is full body with subtle carbonation. Overall I am greatful for the chance to try it. Thanks to eric the bar keep. (444 characters)

Appearance – The beer pours murky brown color with a one finger head of cream foam. The head has a decent level of retention, slowly fading over time to leave a lighter level of foamy lace on the sides of the glass.

Smell – The aroma is heaviest of a caramel and coffee smell with some hints of a chocolate mixed within. Along with these aromas are some smells of hazelnut as well as a little bit of a more earthy hop aroma. A little bit of toffee and a touch of breadiness are there as well, with the overall aroma, being a somewhat weak, oddly mixed, and not quite balanced smell.

Taste – A rather strong hazelnut coffee flavor is present right from the start, remaining constant throughout the taste and creating a base for the flavors of the brew. There is also a very sweet caramel and chocolate flavor at the start. As the taste advances the sweetness persists, only with it transitioning, as a bit of the caramel moves toward a more a toffee and molasses like flavor and with the chocolate gaining some flavors of vanilla enhancing the sweetness. Toward the very end some light earthy and floral hop flavors, as well as a light level of booziness comes to the tongue leaving a sweet, lightly boozy, hazelnut coffee flavor to linger on the tongue.

Mouthfeel – The body of the beer is thick and creamy with a carbonation level that is on the average side. Both are quite nice for the style as they really meld well the hazelnut coffee and sweeter flavors of the brew nicer and make for a decently easy drinker.

Overall – A nice imperial porter that isn’t trying to mimic a stout and take tons of roast, but instead melds well chocolate flavors with a nice hazelnut coffee flavor to create a very pleasant smooth sipper with a good level of coffee, chocolate, and sweet. (1,825 characters)

Poured from a bomber into a stemmed tulip glass and shared with friends.Thanks to Phyl21ca for the bottle!

Pours a clear brown with a short bubbly mocha head with a bit of lace. The nose is of nutty malts and alcohol. On the palate, the beer is again dominated by sweet nutty flavors from malts or extract syrups(?); as loads of sweet caramel malt, butterscotch, milk chocolate. Medium-light body and nice carbonation leaves it a bit thin. Overall, it tasted a bit thin, sweet and a little out of balance. (507 characters)

Bottle: Poured a light brown color ale with a medium size light brown foamy head with OK retention and some lacing. Aroma of nutty liquor is quiet dominant with some overly sweet notes also identifiable. Tasted is dominated by the sweet fake nutty flavours with some overly sweet notes. Body is light with good carbonation. I didn’t appreciate the nutty liquor flavours and thought the beer was too sweet for my taste. (420 characters)

Poured into a tulip style glass. Came to a nice head, but not as high as I would have expected.Very nice color, mild lacing. Could smell the hazelnut, which is flavor of Dunkin Donuts coffee that I usually would pick. Nice tasting beer with just a hint of a little bitterness. Shared this with a friend and we both gave it high marks for overall appeal. Its a beer that I would buy again.There really hasn't been a Founders beer that I've had that I would not rate as a great beer.Very dependable brewer that I have used in my group tastings in the past. Can't miss beer. (576 characters)

dark, murky brown color with a slight head. the smell is very aromatic with roasty coffee and sweet caramel. hazelnuts are also still present. the taste has a bit of coffee, bit of sweetness...tastes kind of like an old school fountain drink. quite tasty. medium bodied, low carbonation. moderately drinkable.

A: a lot of haze on a muddy brown body. head is slightly off-white and frothy. good retention and lacing.

S: smells like something Rogue makes. loads of sweetness and hazelnut. reminds me of a specialty brew from Dunkin Donuts.

D: tons of sweetness this thing is still loaded with hazelnut. really drinks like a dessert coffee. as it continues, it is almost too sweet. lots of body.

M: moderate carb on a big body.

D: like I said on the nose, drinks a lot like a specialty cup of coffee from DD or any brew Rogue would do. I think I like it but part of me hates the utter lack in complexity. indifferent. (668 characters)

Finally reviewing the notorious FMB. Have had multiple times in multiple formats although these are my feelings on the bottle variant.

A: What you'd expect from a brown ale. Nice darker body with a sandy head that dissipates much like other Founders beers leaving a slick like residue on top of the beer.

S: It's reminiscent of a cheap coffee house brought on by the huge hazelnut coffee notes. They hide this bad boy's ABV really well.

T: Very easy to enjoy a few sips but then the flavor becomes so overwhelming. Leaving it to sit does nothing to bring anything additional out. Very hard to finish a pint glass of this and would much prefer a 12oz bottle. Huge blasts of hazelnut coffee absolutely dominate anything else in the beer.

M: My biggest critique is the carbonation...almost club soda like. Huge bubbles that are quire distracting.

O: Certainly not as bad as its reputation I do enjoy this in limited volume. Perfect for a bottle share. (958 characters)

Appearance: A dark brown color. Holy hell! NOT expected. Nice head and great lacing. Very nice looking brown ale.

Smell: A bit sweet. Slight roast? Quite a big amount of nuttiness. Reeks of quality before even taking a sip.

Taste: Best brown ale I've had. I've generally not been all that impressed with the style in the past, but this worked for me. Quite well, in fact. A nice sweetness with the nutty character in this beer really impressed me. Not your boring, ordinary brown ale -- this one's crafted about as well as a brown ale could be, as far as I'm concerned. For that reason, my overall rating is higher than any other rating (aside from appearance). (695 characters)

Poured from bottle into duvel tulip glass... This is a pretty old beer now that I think about it (Founders' says it was released July '12), I had it stashed and for some reason never got around to buying it. Though I was advised against aging this brew, I must say that I'm not displeased by my incompetence to purchase this at an earlier date.

Pours very dark brown though not completely opaque. Small cream head. The smell is very sweet; toffee, caramel, buttery, hazelnut flavoring. The taste on the other hand starts off very chocolaty with a bit of hazelnut coffee that turns into a mainly bold roast flavor (excluding the dryness that normally goes along with that roasted attribute). 9% ABV is unapparent. Mouthfeel is a little too thick and syrupy for a brown ale.

Overall, the flavor of the beer is what stood out the most to me... between having milk chocolate roll into delicious strong coffee notes and completely masking a considerably high ABV. The appearance was pretty spot on as well... the overly sweet smell and the syrupy mouthfeel I did not dig very much for the style though. (1,100 characters)

Dark brown but not opaque pour lots of particulates. Two fingers of rich creamy tan foam is persistent and leaves curtains of lacing. Smells very nearly exactly like a cup of hazelnut-flavored black coffee. It's not bad, but then again it is what it is. I'm not a big hazelnut fan. The taste, again, is hazelnut city, but very sweet, sugary. It near enough reminds me of the International Coffee hazelnut that my mom used to mix up from the rectangular tins. No complaints about the crafted body, it's solid with good mouth feel and moderate carbonation. This one is the hazelnut that keeps on giving and giving and giving. Too much hazelnut, too much sugar. Too much for me. (675 characters)

Poured into a balloon glass. Hazy brown body with light red highlights. Soft, tan head on top slowly dies away to nothing. Not much stickage.

Aroma is of hazelnut, coffee, caramel, and sweet brown bread. It's a potent aroma, but that's good. Some alcohol is noticeable, but just barely. Smells like a dessert beer.

A heavy to medium bodied brown ale with smooth carbonation leads to a fine, lasting hazelnut coffee finish. Surprisingly well balanced, with a taste less sweet than one would expect that comes towards the front, while a clear hop bitterness balances everything quite well in the finish. A subtle, gentle bitterness lasts into the aftertaste, mixed with fresh hazelnut coffee. The exhale brings more hazelnut out.

I heard some people talk poorly about this beer, saying that the hazelnut coffee thing was gimmicky and tasted artificial. Well I am here to say that it tastes just fine, and while hazelnut coffee in and of itself is gimmicky, Founders does an excellent job of creating a balanced coffee brown ale with a twist. It hides the 9% abv very well too! (1,080 characters)

750 ml bottle into tulip glass, bottled in June 2012. Pours lightly hazy dark ruby red color with a 1-2 finger dense light khaki head with good retention, that reduces to a thin cap that lingers. Light spotty lacing clings around the glass. Aromas of big hazelnut, caramel, chocolate, toffee, toast, brown bread, brown sugar, coffee, nuttiness, and toasted earthiness. Fantastic aromas with great balance and complexity of malt and hazelnut coffee notes; with big strength. Taste of hazelnut, caramel, chocolate, toast, toffee, molasses, brown bread, brown sugar, nuttiness, floral, and toasted earthiness. Light coffee bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of hazelnut, chocolate, caramel, toast, toffee, brown bread, brown sugar, nuttiness, floral, light coffee, and toasted earthiness on the finish for a while. Incredible balance and complexity of dark/toasted malt notes with the hazelnut coffee; with zero cloying sweetness after the finish. Light-medium carbonation and fairly full bodied; with a creamy and slick mouthfeel that is great. Alchocol is very well hidden with minimal warming noticed after the finish. Overall this is a fantastic imperial brown ale! All around great balance and complexity of dark/roasted malts with the hazelnut coffee; and very smooth to sip on for 9%. A highly enjoyable offering. (1,329 characters)

Poured from a bottle into a Founders snifter. The pour is deep, dark mahogany with ruby-red tints and sports a nice finger of sandy-colored head that dissipates down to a nice lace. The nose is strong, almost pungent, with hazelnuts and coffee, so much so that I cannot detect much of the malt. I have heard grumblings from fellow BAs about the use of artificial flavorings, but I have to say this smells pretty good. I don't know if it smells like a beer, but it smells pretty good.

Medium-full body and a super-creamy feel. The flavor is sweet and luscious. Lots of hazelnuts, coffee, caramel, toffee, sweet cream, and just a touch of bitterness on the finish - just enough to remind you that it's a beer. There is not much booziness at all, just enough of an alcohol flavor to enhance the richness of the flavor, and there is a heavy hazelnut flavor left lingering in the mouth after you swallow. The richness and intensity of hazelnut flavor dampens the drinkability somewhat, but the taste is certainly appealing to me.

All in all, a very enjoyable beverage, but it's a bit on the sweet side and needs a little more bitterness to complement it, add complexity, and challenge my palate a bit more. More coffee and a little less hazelnut would do it. I would imagine a bourbon barrel-aged version of this would be quite something. (1,335 characters)

22 oz. bomber selfishly poured into a larger version of the Sam Adams perfect Pint glass. Liquid comes out the heartiest of hearty amber brown you can get without getting full on dark brown. Pretty hazy, lots of little particle chunks floating around in it. Tan colored creamy looking head, some different sized bubbles, but mostly very small. Some really nice lacing.

Smell is good, but pretty unique. Ridiculous amount of maltiness, basically it's own category. Toffee, brown sugar, with some type of combination of pale, chocolatey, buscuity malt. Then the aromas of a hazelnut coffee without any cream or sugar. Basically take a high malted brown ale and mix it with a cup of hazelnut coffee, that's your smell, no joke. Certainly not what I prefer all of my brown ales to smell like, but this is a pretty unique combination.

Taste is good, but too sweet to be as good as the smell. Again, the malt and sugar is very strong, not to the point of overwhelming, but extremely potent. There's again caramel and pale malts as well as hints of charred chocolate. However, everything takes a back seat to the heavy hazelnut coffee flavors.

Mouthfeel is good, medium bodied, so lighter than you'd expect for something with so much sweet flavor. Pretty smooth and a really good carbonation level. It's so sweet though you really have to think about it when you're drinking it. Pretty drinkable, but you really need to be in the mood for a coffee beer or something really sweet. I remember many people warning me that this would be a sugar bomb, especially when fresh which is why I aged it for awhile before drinking. This is beyond a sugar bomb, it's a sugar atom bomb. (1,671 characters)

The flavor is a bit better, but there is still a synthetic hazelnut feel. The hazelnut flavor goes on forever. A light cocoa powder sweetness starts out the sip, with bready malts, a bit of caramel, hazelnuts and coffee bringing up the rear. I am left with an oily, synthetic hazelnut flavor.

The body is on the fuller side of medium, with a creamy carbonation and an overall oily feel.

I expect better than synthetic flavors from Founders. (747 characters)